It could be called Climate Action.
A group of seventeen European and American investors (notably Edmond de Rothschild AM, La Banque Postale AM & Tocqueville
Finance, La Financière de l'Echiquier and Sycomore AM) have filed an advisory resolution, which may be put to the vote of the shareholders of TotalEnergies, during the general assembly of the group, on May 26th.
"
The objective is twofold: to respond to the climate emergency and to fulfill our commitments as investors
", explains Bertille Knuckey, SRI manager at Sycomore AM.
In their line of sight: the trajectory of TotalEnergies in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
If the landing point is in line with the Paris climate agreement, i.e. carbon neutrality in 2050, the energy company's milestones pose a problem for these shareholders.
"
We are asking for scope 3 emissions to be aligned with those set by the Paris agreements
", explains Bertille Knuckey.
For the record, scope 1 includes greenhouse gas emissions directly linked to the manufacture of the product, scope 2 those linked to the energy consumption necessary for the manufacture of the product and scope 3 all other greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse effect linked not to manufacturing but to other stages of the product's life cycle.
TotalEnergies has set itself an objective of reducing its CO2 emissions by 40% for its scopes 1 and 2 and by 25% for scope 3. This latter objective "is not
aligned with those of the Paris agreement on the climate (...).
The current energy and climate crises can be solved simultaneously by investing the windfall profits generated by high oil and gas prices in other sources of energy
“, explain the shareholders in their resolution.
For rebellious shareholders, TotalEnergies does not sufficiently take into account in its calculations the impact of its development strategy in natural gas.
Patrick Pouyanné constantly emphasizes that the use of natural gas instead of coal to produce electricity halves CO2 emissions, but this substitution would not sufficiently reduce the environmental impact of the group's activity by 2030. “
In its calculations, TotalEnergies presents only part of the information.
We do not validate the path chosen by TotalEnergies to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050
,” adds Bertille Knuckey.